Happy Chinese New Year!

Today is Chinese (or Lunar) New Year, beginning the Year of the Dog. We're not planning to do much -- just order some Chinese food for dinner!

We've focused on my Irish heritage in our house since Jess and I got married. It's always been important to me, and Jess has an interest in the culture. Our trip to Ireland a few years ago was a real dream come true -- an unforgettable trip. When we bring our daughter home from China, we'll be incorporating some of her culture into our family too, but it won't be our sole focus. We plan to celebrate, learn about, and honor both heritages in our family (with a bit of Italian thrown in there too!). Right now the Chinese culture is new to us and we're learning all we can. We will have a truly American home -- a melting pot of cultures combined into one.

Homestudy: 1 Visit Down, 2 to Go

Well, our first homestudy visit went pretty well. I was really nervous and stressed about it, expecting it to be more of a "grilling": "Why do you think you're good enough for us to let you have a child?" type of thing. But it wasn't at all. It was more informational than anything, with her telling us about the process and expectations. There were a few questions, but they were basic, like why do we want to adopt and why did we choose our agency. The next visit may be more of an inquisition than this one was because we'll be filling out another questionnaire and talking about our answers with her -- each of us separately. I have no idea what will be on this questionnaire.

She toured our house, including the basement. I had the house looking really good, and was proud to show her around. The funny thing was, when we got to our bedroom, Jess opened up our closet door!!! I said, "Don't show her that! I don't think she wants to see our dirty laundry!" That was a literal statement, as I had just shoved piles of dirty laundry in there! I almost died. She agreed that she didn't need to see our laundry!

We learned some good things, and she recommended a lot of books and other resources for us. I think by the end we all felt good about things. She gave no indication that this wasn't a good choice for us and didn't discourage us from adopting, so I'm taking that as a good sign. And everything she talked about was in reference to "when" not "if." I hope she saw our hearts as far as our love for children and our commitment to adoption.

Bohdan was great the whole time and showed off his charming side. At first he sat at the table with us and was telling the social worker his own story -- very seriously -- while Jess was trying to tell her why we want to adopt. It was really cute. Then he played with his trains most of the time and we finally put a movie on for him toward the end when he was getting tired.

Next Wednesday will be our next 2 meetings in one where she meets with us each individually, and the final meeting is a week from Monday. I'm surprised how quickly we'll be getting through all of them.

So thanks for your prayers, and I'll let you know how the next one goes.

Homestudy Scheduled

We got a call from our social worker today, and our first homestudy visit will be on Wednesday evening, the 25th. It will be a 2 1/2 hour meeting at our house.

The homestudy will be a total of 4 visits -- two with us together, and then one each with Jess and I individually.

I'm nervous about the homestudy because it feels like a really big job interview...for a job we'll have the rest of our lives! It evaluates everything about our lives: our home, our finances, our health, our personalities, our family, and more. Nothing like having someone come to your house to see if you're fit to be a good parent...especially when you already have a child!

I'll be in frantic cleaning mode for the next four days. Guess it's time to finally take down the Christmas tree! (For the record, all the other decorations -- including the ornaments from the tree -- are packed up and put away. We just have to take the actual tree down.)

Deeper Into the Pile

We've actually gotten quite a bit of paperwork done already. All the easy stuff is done -- things where we just have to fill in applications or sign papers and return them.

We've also completed some of the more complicated things. We sent for and received our birth certificates within 2 days -- I wish everything would go this quickly! We sent for our marriage certificate. Long questionnaires about our past and present family life are done. Questionnaires have been given to our 3 references (big thank you to those of you who are doing this for us!). Passports are copied. And we have appointments made for our physicals.

The next stack of papers are all things that have to be notarized. Thankfully we have a notary at work, so that should be easy to do. I'm also compiling the required 8 photos of our family that will go with our dossier to China. And we have a draft of our "Petition to Adopt" letter to the Chinese government, explaining why we want to adopt from China.

We've paid the fees for our homestudy, so now we're just waiting to find out who our social worker is and when we can get the meetings set up with him/her. We'll need to meet with the social worker 3 times and then he/she will write up a report on our family and household. Kind of nervous about that, just because I'm not sure what to expect. And I think the nesting instinct has kicked in because I feel great pressure to get our house in top shape before the social worker comes!

Our agency has been great so far, especially considering I've called or emailed almost every day with paperwork questions!

So that's where we are at 2 1/2 weeks into the process...

It's a girl!

We are happy to announce that we're "paper pregnant" -- we are adopting a baby girl from China!

God put adoption on our hearts a year ago after the tsunami in Southeast Asia. Shortly afterward, he put China on our hearts. Since then we've been researching, networking, and learning all we can. Over the holiday we met with our agency and began the formal application and document-gathering process known as the paperchase.

The whole process, from application to receiving a child, is taking approximately 12-14 months. We will probably learn who our new daughter is sometime around next Christmas or New Year's. Then we'll be traveling to China to bring her home about 4-8 weeks after that. We anticipate that she will be between 9 and 18 months when she comes home.

We are very excited to be moving forward with this since we've been planning it for a year now. We've already completed a bunch of paperwork, although there's even more to come. We got fingerprinted at the police station for the first of two fingerprint background checks.

The first date we're working toward is February 28 -- the deadline for all of our paperwork to be completed and compiled into a "dossier." This dossier will first be authenticated and approved by the US government, and then it will go to China for approval. Aside from the mountain of paperwork, the next big step will be starting our homestudy.

We would appreciate your prayers during this time, specifically for:

• Health and safety of our daughter in China until we can go get her
• Speedy processing of our paperwork through the US and Chinese government agencies
• Finances for the adoption to come together

We will be using this blog to keep all of you up to date on our progress, and yes, we'll be better at keeping it updated! We hope you'll join us in prayer for this exciting adventure we've begun!